Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - The Dinner

Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

The Dinner by Herman Koch

16 reviews

sophiaroesler's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense

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cowboyrobbie's review against another edition

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I think the translator might be to blame on this one. The way it was written was super repetitive with almost every thought this guy was having. Just couldn’t finish.

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hhaven13's review

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

A lot of jumping around in time and was often hard to follow. None of the characters were likable and often made me angry. There were often details left out for the sake of the characters “privacy” but leaving out the details didn’t seem to add any value to the story. I don’t believe the book is originally written in English so I think some things may have been lost in translation.
Overall a good read and kept me wanting to know what was next.

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imandubose's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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c_alma_d's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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elisalasater's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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jazsever's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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anagspereira's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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chlorai's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

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clemrain's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Where do you begin with The Dinner? I suppose it would be with the dinner.

This book takes course through one dinner. An important dinner and discussion between difficult characters that are strong in their beliefs and will act on them. That is a threat.

The narrator, Paul, is astonishingly written. A wild ride of inner dialogues and anecdotes that are placed in just the right places. Koch uses great pacing and placements of Paul’s recounts. Paul is of the best unreliable narrator’s I’ve read.

The Dinner is such a real depiction of racism, prejudice and privilege. That doesn’t catch on until it does and then it just settles. I can’t explain it. Koch does such a good job. You really get put into the disillusionment of these people. It’s astonishing. These are some well written and realistic characters though majority of them, I really don't like.

I wish I could read this book in its original language. I wonder how much it would’ve differed. The pacing the wording. Either way, I do think this translation is effective.

The ending

is five stars to me. Of course it ended like that. There is no consequence for people like Paul. It was realistic. Though I wonder a lot what “disease” Paul left unmentioned. I wonder our conclusions as readers are meant to be us facing our own prejudice.

This book is frustrating and for most of it I was just trying to understand what the point was. But there is a point and I wonder if it’ll ever be understood by the people this book is about.

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